When the United States dispatched icebreakers to Proliv Vil'kitskogo [Vil'kitskii Strait] in 1967, the Soviet Union did not allow the vessels to accomplish the passage, basing their refusal on a requirement, provided for in municipal legislation, that warships seek prior authorization. During the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (1973–82) the USSR reversed this policy: innocent passage was granted in principle to merchant and war vessels alike. This article analyzes whether this fundamental policy change, together with some other novelties in Soviet legislation, substantially influenced the regime applicable to Vil'kitskii Strait. Theoretical considerations would apparently answer this question positively. Actual state practice, though still open to conjecture, points rather in the opposite direction.

Of 52 Antarctic sites and monuments of historic interest currently listed under Antarctic Treaty recommendations, 26 occur in the Ross Dependency, associated mostly with the expeditions of Scott and Shackleton. Many have recently been visited and a number of further sites, including several dating from Byrd expeditions, have been identified by New Zealand field parties. This article catalogues all Ross Dependency sites recorded to the end of 1987, and the current state of preservation of their artefacts, which are in the care of Antarctic Division, New Zealand DSIR.

The enhanced international significance of Antarctica during the 1980s is shown by a proliferation of studies analysing current and future possibilities. The year 1987 proved no exception to this trend; reports issued under the auspices of the European Parliament, the United Nations and the David Davies Memorial Institute of International Affairs reinforced the impression that Antarctica has become a continent surrounded by advice, even if it proves difficult to evaluate how far such reports will influence the policy-makers. Conservation proved a common feature, while the reports, discussed in this article, raise interesting questions about the future of the Antarctic Treaty system.

Dental models of 649 Canadian Inuit from Hall Beach and Igloolik, and both models and skull dentitions of 782 Greenland Inuit (323 from the east coast, 459 from the west coast), were examined for (a) presence or absence of four specific morphological variants considered by various authors to indicate racial affinities (shovel-shaped incisors, cusp of Carabelli, Eskimo tubercle and protostylid on molars and premolars), and (b) amount of wear. Dental models of contemporary British and British-Asian subjects were studied for comparison. Both living and skeletal Greenland material was from people known to have followed a traditional Inuit lifestyle, with little or no contact with the Western world. Canadian material was from a population in transition between traditional and Western ways of life, eating both native and Western foods. Morphological variation was considered in the context of genetic affinities of the populations to each other and to other groups of Central Asian origin. Tooth wear was examined in relation to diet, lifestyle and health.

In 1905 Nathalie Fairbank left Seattle on a journey by sea, train and river across Yukon Territory and Alaska, accompanying Brigadier A. W. Greely and his daughter on a tour of inspection of US Army Signal Corps telegraph posts along the Yukon River. This article is her account of the journey, with contemporary illustrations.

Capt Henry Wemyss Feilden RA, an amateur naturalist with particular interests in ornithology, was appointed by the Royal Society of London to serve as one of two naturalists with the British Arctic Expedition of 1875–76, which wintered off northern Ellesmere Island under the command of Capt G. S. Nares RN. Feilden took part in several sledging journeys, and made important collections and observations, especially on the geology and biology of the region.

Antarctic Airways, an independent commercial airline, operated one DC-4 and two Twin Otter aircraft during the 1987–88 summer season. The DC-4 made twelve direct flights between Punta Arenas, Chile, and the Ellsworth Mountains. The Twin Otters were used for onward flights to destinations including the South Pole. The significance of this development is that scientists from countries that do not have ships or bases in the Antarctic can now work on the continent without either.

An occupational health unit has been established by British Antarctic Survey (BAS) which utilises the philosophy and principles employed to provide health care for offshore workers on the UK continental shelf. The central problem is the distance and time which separates the remote worker from the sophisticated diagnostic and specialist services which other sections of the community enjoy. BAS has resolved this by the establishment of a coordinating medical unit and by setting up special training programmes for the population at risk, together with the provision of increasingly effective systems of communication. The ultimate aim is the provision of full diagnostic and specialist services at the remote work-site in the Antarctic through the medium of the resident doctor or health care worker and through increasingly sophisticated communications. A retrospective study of Antarctic morbidity has been undertaken to provide a base-line, and a prospective database has now been set up to provide ongoing surveillance of the system and an evaluation of the effectiveness of this approach to the health care of remote communities.

In 1974–75 30 muskoxen Ovibos moschatus were introduced to the tundra of Poluostrov Taymyr, ten from Banks Island NWT, Canada and 20 from Nunivak Island, Alaska. Originally enclosed in large corrals near a special research station in the Bikada valley, at the east end of Ozero Taymyr, the animals were released in 1980/82. The first calf to survive infancy was born in 1978; since then the death rate has been extremely low. By July 1987 the population had risen to 230, running in 10–12 herds. Most of the animals still range close to the Bikada valley, but one herd of 40 animals has moved noth across the main range of Byrranga Gory. Bachelor bulls wander even farther afield, up to 300 km from the release site. In August 195 two bulls appeard at Mys Chelyuskina, the northernmost tip of the continent.

A method has been developed for deducing the variation with height of the atmospheric temperature, using the observed form of a mirage as the input. This method is applicable to the class of mirages in which the object appears undistorted, although magnified, vertically displaced, and quite possibly inverted: here applied to an observation of this class of mirage made by Dr William Scoresby in 1822, it is used to deduce the nature of the temperature inversion prevailing on that occasion.